Rita E. Samper

Deployment Risk and Resilience Inventory: A Collection of Measures for Studying Deployment-Related Experiences of Military Personnel and Veterans

This article describes the development of an inventory to assess key psychosocial risk and resilience factors for military personnel and veterans deployed to war zones or other hazardous environments. Part 1 details the definition and operationalization of the 14 constructs: 2 predeployment factors (e.g., childhood family environment), 10 deployment or war-zone factors (e.g., concerns about life and family disruptions, deployment social support, combat experiences), and 2 postdeployment factors (e.g., postdeployment stressors). In Parts 2 and 3, data from 2 separate national samples of Gulf War veterans were used to refine item sets and establish estimates of internal consistency reliability. Part 4 employed a 3rd new national sample of Gulf War veterans to document evidence for validity in terms of relations with mental and physical health.

Deployment stressors and posttraumatic stress symptomatology: Comparing active duty and National Guard/Reserve personnel from Gulf War I

The increased use of National Guard and Reserve (NG/R) military personnel in current conflicts raises the question of whether deployment experiences and their associations with posttraumatic stress symptomatology differ for active duty and NG/R military personnel. To date, very few studies are available on this topic. Moreover, it is unclear whether the impact of military status differs for women and men. We addressed these research issues in a sample of 311 female and male Gulf War I veterans. Several differences were observed in deployment stressor exposures and results based on differential associations generally suggested more negative impacts of deployment experiences for active duty women and NG/R men. The potential role of unit cohesion in explaining these findings is discussed.

PTSD Symptom Severity and Family Adjustment Among Female Vietnam Veterans

This study examined relations between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity and several family adjustment variables among a sample of 89 female Vietnam veterans and their male relationship partners. Findings revealed associations between PTSD symptom severity and measures of marital adjustment, family adaptability, family cohesion, parenting satisfaction, and psychological abuse. Results suggest that the presence of PTSD symptomatology may have important implications with regard to the family life of female Vietnam veterans.